


Reunion

by what_on_io



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set before series one. Rimmer is invited home to stay at his parents' house and Lister wants to go with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on FanFiction, I decided to post on here too 'cause it's gonna get slashy pretty soon :D Sorry if it sucks, or anything...

It was a monumental day aboard mining ship Red Dwarf.

The mail had arrived.

David Lister had just returned from collecting his various packages from the mail room and was now carrying a bulging bundle tied messily together with string under one arm, with several fat white envelopes stuffed into both pockets of his jacket, and clutching five smaller packages in his free hand. He was on his way back to the sleeping quarters, trying not to look too conspicuous as he passed other crew members, many of them swiveling around after initially passing him to gaze questioningly at the man with all the mail.

It wasn't as if Lister usually got much mail. But he'd been signing up for more and more junk lately – pamphlets on topics ranging from house plant insurance to 'Looking To Sell Your Hovercar?' even though Lister didn't, nor had he ever, owned a hovercar, about fifty free pens from assorted companies, the occasional holiday brochure, and a rather hefty packet of information about a new brand of water bed that, even if Lister had been able to afford such an item, could not possibly be carted onboard the large mining ship.

The only other pieces of mail were a few bills that had reached him from his luggage locker back on Mimas, and an invitation to a poker game that he could no longer attend. What with being in space and all.

Sighing, Lister entered the sleeping quarters and dumped the piles of mail on his bunk as he began to sift through the masses of paper and envelopes.

After fifteen minutes of completing this mind-numbing task, his bunkmate, Arnold Rimmer, entered the room looking somewhat peeved. In his hand he held a single beige envelope, which he had split open at one side, and now he tipped the envelope up so that the folded paper inside tumbled out into his hand. Scowling, he sat down at the room's desk and scanned the letter before sighing heavily and tossing it aside.

It was only then he seemed to notice Lister's presence, and half turned in his chair to look at him, still sorting through the pile on his bed, a frown etched onto his features. Clearing his throat, Rimmer broached the question, "Where the hell did you get all that from?"

"I sent for it," Lister muttered, glancing over a leaflet on PPI claims. He balled it up and sent it flying into the bin across the room, along with all the other scrunched up bits of paper he'd sent in that vague direction. Now an array of colorful papers littered the floor, leading from the bunk to the wastepaper basket.

"You sent for it? Why? It's junk, Lister," Rimmer said, narrowing his eyes at the other man, who shrugged.

"Dunno."

Dropping the subject, Rimmer turned back to the matter at hand. He took out a sheet of paper and a pen, and squinted down at the blank page as if he expected the words to write themselves. He was mildly surprised when they didn't.

"What ya doin'?" Lister asked, hopping down from his bunk with a soft thud. Rimmer looked up from the paper, glad of the distraction.

"Writing a letter."

"Who to?" Lister inquired, perching on the edge of Rimmer's desk and nearly causing the whole thing to topple over. With a look of disgust painted on his face, Rimmer replied with a heavy sigh.

"My mother."

"Yer mother? Why?"

"Because she's invited me to stay for the annual family dinner next week. Once a year when we land back on Io for planet leave, she writes to my brothers and asks them if they'd like to stay for a few days, and if one of them can't make it, she asks me."

"Are ya gonna go?" Lister asked, still balancing precariously on the tabletop. Rimmer sighed and massaged his temples.

"Not if I can think of a good enough excuse not to."

"Aww, why not? Don't you wanna catch up with yer parents? See yer brothers?"

"No, I most definitely do not," Rimmer snapped, turning the pen he was holding in his hands, "I can't say I'm ill – I used that one last time. How about 'the whole ship's been struck down with a contagious disease'? Nah, it's too obvious. They'd see it in orbit, anyway. What if I just don't reply? Or, better yet, you could reply to the letter and tell them I'm dead! There! Problem solved! Get writing, Listy, will you? Be a pal?"

"Aww, Rimmer, you've gotta go! They're yer family!"

Rimmer rolled his eyes, "Family? They can't stand me. The only reason I'm even invited is because John's off attending some fancy lecture." Another sigh, "That might work! I could say I'm going to a lecture!"

Lister shot Rimmer an odd look as he put pen to paper and started scribbling furiously, and, when Rimmer paused to think of something to sign off with, plucked the sheet of paper from his hands, crumpled it in his fist, and sent it soaring over to join the others on the floor.

"Lister! I was writing that! It was perfect! I was going to send it!"

"You have to go, Rimmer. They're your family, whether you like it or not."

"You don't know what I had to put up with as a child, Lister! They only sent me to boarding school to get rid of me! All my brothers got private tutoring at our house! I was just shipped away like an unwanted pet once Christmas is over. Everything I did was a huge disappointment to them, Lister. They were never happy with anything I did! Never!"

"Well, now's the time to make up for that! Show them that you made a life for yourself an' everythin'!"

"Made a life for myself? I'm a Second Technician on a decrepit old mining ship who fixes vending machines for a living! I don't have a girlfriend, I've failed my AstroNavs more than eleven times already, my career prospects have gone out the window – made a life for myself, indeed!"

Lister pondered this for a moment before clicking his fingers as if he had experienced a major brainwave.

"I could come with you!" he announced, seeming immensely proud of himself for coming up with such an excellent plan. Rimmer's disgust was plain on his face when he sneered at Lister.

"Come with me? You? Why?!"

"Well, it's not like I've got anythin' better to do, is it? My plans for planet leave consisted entirely of gettin' wasted on a week-long pub crawl!" He grinned, fully expecting Rimmer to jump at his offer, slightly put out when he didn't, "I'd make you look good in front of yer folks, y'know? It'll be great, Rimmer! I've never been to a proper family gatherin' before – this is gonna be brutal!"

"No, Lister, it isn't going to be 'brutal' or anything close to that, because, first of all – my family are stuck-up, prim and proper arseholes who definitely would not take kindly to a slob like you in their house. And secondly, because you're not coming."

"Aww, Rimmer, please? I never had a proper family growin' up, just a few foster families. Please?" Lister gave him his best impersonation of a doe-eyed look, and Rimmer leaned back in his chair before mentally admitting defeat.

"Rule number one – no swearing. No smoking, or lounging around the house in your underwear, or wearing shirts with curry stains down the front. No asking for hot sauce with every meal. If you insult me once – once, Lister – you're out. Rule number six, no getting drunk and passing out on the floor. No spitting or chewing with your mouth open or hitting on my mother…"

Several hours later, Rimmer had finally run out of rules, and was chewing on the end of his pen in an attempt to create a response that somehow included Lister joining them for the annual meeting, without it sounding more than a desperate friend who was in need of somewhere to stay.

"Oh, and I've just remembered, Lister – rule number four hundred and three, don't call me Rimmer, okay?"

"But that's yer name!" Lister protested, idling flicking through a dirty magazine on the bunk. He spared Rimmer a glance when he released the air from his lungs.

"It's not my name, Lister. Just… call me Arnold, okay? Or Arn. Or Arnie. But not Rimmer!"

Lister rolled his eyes, "Fine. Arn."


	2. Chapter Two

A week later, Lister and Rimmer were sitting on a crowded shuttle from Red Dwarf, which had just that morning had entered orbit around Jupiter. The passengers on the shuttle were packed in like cramped sardines, creating a collective overpowering smell of sweat and a sense of unease among the crew members.

Lister, who was crammed in between Rimmer and an overweight woman sporting more facial hair than was healthy, was caught between a sense of disgust and nervous anticipation. Rimmer had hardly spoken as he packed a suitcase the night before, and they'd eaten breakfast in a stony silence before boarding the shuttle, and Lister couldn't judge from his expression whether he was anxious or just dreading the week's planet leave.

Lister wasn't sure how he felt about the whole thing. When he'd first suggested the idea, he hadn't been thinking properly. He certainly hadn't thought clearly about actually meeting Rimmer's parents. But he'd already talked Rimmer into letting him accompany him, and even though the pub crawl he had first organized was sounding more and more tempting by the second, he wasn't about to go back on his word.

In short, Lister hadn't completely registered the fact that he would be spending an entire week with Rimmer.

The shuttle ground to a halt as it entered the docking bay on Io, and people began to move automatically to the sliding doors. Lister and Rimmer were among the last ones off the shuttle after being jostled by numerous shoulders and elbows, everyone pressing forward to be the first to leave. When they finally spilled out into the crowded docking bay, trying to avoid bumping into chauffeurs waiting with signs to escort the higher ranking crew members to their five star hotels, Rimmer led the way to a taxi rank on the other side of the bay – not giving Lister a chance to start a conversation.

By the time he finally managed to catch up to his bunkmate, Rimmer was speaking hurriedly to the man behind the desk at the taxi rank, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but standing in the crowded docking bay requesting a vehicle to take him back to the family gathering he'd been trying to wriggle out of for the past fortnight.

The man nodded, and Rimmer turned from the window, adjusting his suitcase and marching towards the automatic doors to their left.

"Rimmer, wait!" Lister called after him. He had been trying to order a milkshake from a nearby vending machine, only to have it spit out something that might once have resembled a pool of mud, at best, and now he'd almost lost sight of the other man through the crowd.

"I told you not to call me-" Rimmer began, and stopped when he turned to see Lister attempting to slurp up the remaining drops of milkshake, dripping bits of chocolate down his already ruined shirt, "Lister, do you expect me to introduce you to my parents looking like that?"

"Lookin' like wha'?" Lister asked, moving the straw around in a slow circle to catch the last bit of sludge from the bottom of the polystyrene cup. Rimmer gritted his teeth and towed Lister by his jacket sleeve into the nearest restroom, where he positioned him in front of the mirror so he had a plain view of his reflection.

"Yeah… like what?" Lister repeated slowly. Rimmer just sighed.

"You're not coming," he said resolutely. Lister rolled his eyes.

"Fine! I'll change, all right?" With that, he dragged his own bag into one of the cubicles, slammed the door shut, and left Rimmer standing there like an idiot, glowering at no-one.

XXX

Even the pavement outside was bustling with people, standing around waiting to be picked up or talking on mobile phones or just generally getting in the way. Rimmer was standing against a wall to the far side of the docking bay entrance, waiting for the cab he had ordered to turn up. Lister, he assumed, was still in the bathroom, and to be quite honest, he didn't care if he stayed there.

What had he been thinking, allowing Lister to accompany him to his parents' house? He could just see the look on his mother's face when he turned up in whatever smeggy outfit he'd picked out from the duffel bag he'd brought along. She'd be disgusted, and she probably wouldn't attempt to disguise it. His father might even kick Lister out of the house… Hmm, that did sound tempting. Maybe he'd wait for him after all.

The hover-cab pulled up and landed just as Lister emerged from the building, duffel bag slung across his shoulder and a slightly desperate look on his face as he scanned the lines of people for Rimmer, who reluctantly waved him over. As soon as he had a full view of his bunkmate, the sight he laid eyes on took his breath away for a second.

Lister had changed out of his grubby t-shirt and trousers, and into… a suit. A real, clean, non-smeggy suit. With a tie and everything. A black shirt that actually matched his black trousers, and which didn't have curry stains down the front. A matching blazer.

For a second, all Rimmer could do was stare, thinking how inadequate he was going to look in his normal technician's uniform.

"This good enough for ya?" Lister challenged, cocking an eyebrow. Rimmer shook himself from his reverie and nodded, agonizingly slowly, before changing his mind and vigorously shaking his head, an incredulous expression painted on his face.

"No! Lister – what are you thinking?" Rimmer asked in a decidedly higher pitch than he would have liked, not entirely sure of the answer himself. From behind them, the cab driver leaned on the horn, startling them both into action.

"What's wrong with it?" Lister asked as they climbed into the cab. Rimmer didn't reply, just settled into his own seat and looked sullenly out of the window, refusing to turn around and look the other man in the eye. The cab driver shot them both a look in the rearview mirror and they pulled out of the parking lot of the docking bay and moved steadily into the hovering traffic on the Io highway.

Finally, after a silence so long it was beginning to make Lister itch, Rimmer angled himself towards him and hissed, "Why are you wearing a suit?"

"You told me to change!" Lister protested. Rimmer glared at him with narrowed eyes, nostrils flaring.

"I said no such thing, in fact. Even if I had – you look ridiculous," Rimmer stammered, although the lie came through gritted teeth. He'd never seen Lister dressed up before, unless he counted the few dates he'd gone on back on the ship, and then he'd always returned so drunk that the illusion of any grandeur was shattered, and he had to admit, he looked quite…

No. Rimmer refused to let himself think it. He focused on Lister's petulant pout, the way he'd folded his arms stubbornly across his chest and gone back to staring out of the window – not that there was much to see, in fact – the hovercars teeming out of the various highway exits to join the end of the queue they were currently stuck in were as commonplace as always. Everywhere you turned, the pollution was almost visible.

"Whatever, Rimmer," Lister muttered, and Rimmer felt immediately guilty. Refusing to entertain the notion that he might have been a tad harsh, he gave the cabbie directions to turn off at the next exit and didn't speak to his companion for the remainder of the journey.

XXX

The Rimmer family home was in the nicer area of their already nice estate – three storeys high, with a front lawn (perfectly preened) framed by a white picket fence, the front door painted just the right shade of red to stand out, but not too much, against the others in the neighbourhood. His father's car was already parked on the driveway, his mother's probably tucked away in the adjoining garage, and their taxi looked incredibly out of place when it finally deposited them on the pavement after charging a rather hefty fee of thirty-five dollarpounds.

Rimmer had to admit – he didn't want to go in. He was torn between letting Lister get out ahead of him before ordering the cabbie to take him as far away from the house as one-hundred dollarpounds would get him, and just camping out on the front lawn. Anything to avoid seeing his parents again.

But, he told himself, he couldn't put it off forever. So, after retrieving his suitcase from the trunk of the taxi, he forced his legs to carry him off the road, where he would have calmly laid down and waited for the next non-hovercar to run him over, and up the driveway of his old house.

He wasn't surprised that no-one had come out to greet him as they would have done his brothers. He was surprised, however, to find that he didn't really care anymore. After all, hadn't he been the one trying to put this trip off?

"Lister, remember what I told you-" Rimmer began, pausing at the door, but Lister just muttered 'yeah, yeah' and rang the doorbell with such force Rimmer was surprised it didn't break under the pressure exerted upon it.

The door opened a crack, and Rimmer's mother peered out, glaring suspiciously at them both before realizing that it was just her youngest and least-preferred son, and opened the door a little wider to allow them both inside.

"Hello, Arnold," she said, and Rimmer tried not to visibly shudder as they stepped into the front hallway. Was a handshake customary? A one-armed embrace? Neither really seemed appropriate, so Rimmer just stood awkwardly in the hall while his mother murmured, "And you must be David. How lovely to meet you," as if it were anything but.

Lister extended a hand for her to shake, and she took it, forcing a smile. When the greeting was over, she gestured lamely to the door leading to the lounge, "Your father is through there. He's had a hard day at work, so it'd be better if you didn't disturb him."

"Where are Frank and Howard?" Rimmer asked nervously, his palms breaking into a sweat at the thought of seeing his brothers after all this time, probably clad in their officers uniforms with their shiny pips on full display-

"They aren't due to arrive until this evening. They said they'd be home in time for dinner," Rimmer's mother told them, "Oh, and Arnold, one more thing… we converted your old bedroom into an office for when John's home… so you're going to have to find somewhere else to stay."

That, Rimmer thought, was just his luck. His childhood bedroom, turned into a completely pointless office for a brother who was never home. Just his smegging luck.


	3. Chapter Three

So that's how Rimmer and Lister found themselves prowling the streets half an hour later, after exchanging agonizingly polite small talk with Rimmer's mother over freshly brewed coffee that had left a sour taste in Rimmer's mouth. Rimmer only had two-hundred dollarpounds in cash, so they'd saved on the expense of ordering another taxi and decided to search for a cheap (and probably disgusting) hotel on foot.

"I can't believe yer mum just chucked us out onto the street!" Lister complained for what must have been the tenth time since they left the Rimmer household. Rimmer gritted his teeth, refusing to engage in that particular argument again. He was already angry with his mother after discovering that all of his old things hadn't even been put into storage – she'd just dumped it all at the nearest landfill site – and he preferred to seethe in silence.

"Was she always like that?" Lister wondered as they turned another corner onto a slightly more populated street – they were reaching the center of town, finally.

"I suppose so," Rimmer allowed, staring at the floor, "She always favored my brothers, if that's what you mean."

"Even when you were really young?"

Rimmer thought about it. All that sprung to mind were images of his brothers ganging up on him, and his mother refusing to even hear his point of view before scolding him and sending him to bed without dinner. Images of her congratulating them on their achievements, and of him being ignored in the background, just as he was in family photographs – shoved as close to the frame of the photograph as possible so that if they enlarged the picture a little, he could be hidden behind the thick frame from any visiting eyes. Come to think about it, Rimmer couldn't even remember his mother so much as hugging him when he was a child. Not so much as brushing his curls out of his eyes.

"Yes," Rimmer said slowly, and Lister frowned.

"I'm startin' to see what you meant about me writin' to 'em and tellin' 'em you were dead," he said, and Rimmer laughed humorlessly.

"Just remember, Lister, you're the one who dragged us here," he said as they entered the main street. If Rimmer's memory served him correctly, they were only a few blocks away from a hotel that was relatively cheap and even bearable if you overlooked the dead cockroaches gathering in the en suite bathrooms and the spy-holes drilled into some of the walls.

The lobby of the hotel was grotty, and the hygiene levels questionable even by Lister's standards. After learning that the prices had actually risen since the last time Rimmer had been here (during the last family get-together, if his memory served him correctly, when his father had thrown him out of the house for getting far too drunk over a meal and blurting out that one of his aunts – his father's sister, to be exact – had gotten fat since the last time he had seen her), he and Lister decided to split the price for a single room, knowing that if they by some miracle managed to scrape together enough change to afford two separate rooms they wouldn't be able to eat for the rest of the week.

When they climbed the stairs to the third floor after learning that the lift was broken and unlocked the door to their room, however, it became apparent that the stay wasn't going to run as smoothly as they might have hoped.

For a start, there was only one bed.

And, for another thing, the bed was a double.

Lister, ever the optimist, immediately started babbling about how it could be worse, leaving Rimmer to stare, slightly open-mouthed, at the offending object, sitting innocently against the wall with its off-white sheets and pathetically flat pillows.

"Look, there's even a TV! And the bathroom's okay, it's not too… Well, it is, but it looks like you could go inside without running the risk of catchin' something," Lister said, forcing a smile. Rimmer frowned at him, gesturing to the bed.

"Lister, are you suffering from ridiculously large blind spots? Can't you see that?"

Lister had desperately been trying to avoid broaching the subject of the bed, but now that Rimmer had done it for him, he sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he was now going to have to address it, "It's just a bed, Rimmer."

"Exactly! Just a bed. One bed. One double bed."

"It's not that bad. We could just roll up the towels from the bathroom and line 'em up in the middle."

"I'm not getting into bed with you, Lister!" Rimmer squeaked, just the thought of it enough to make him break out into a sweat. Lister sighed.

"I used to do it all the time with my mates when we were too drunk to get back to our own quarters," Lister said, smiling slightly at the memory, "It's not so bad."

"Yes, well, I'm not your 'mate'. And, unfortunately, we aren't drunk, Lister. There is no smegging way I'm going to sleep next to you in that thing. You practically ooze curry sauce."

"Is that the problem? Hell, Rimmer, if it's that simple I'll just hop in the shower now-"

"Of course that's not the problem! I refuse to sleep next to another man, Lister. I'll- I'll just sleep on the floor."

"What, with no blankets? There's only a double duvet, Rimmer."

"Well even that has to be better than-" Rimmer shuddered at the alternative.

"Fine," Lister spat, sinking onto the bed to take off his boots, "I'll take a shower anyway. Better make myself presentable for dinner with yer parents tonight."

The thought of going back to his old house to sit through an insufferable meal with his parents and brothers almost made the bed an attractive prospect, although Rimmer didn't dare let it show. Instead, he nodded once, and watched Lister hop through to the bathroom, still struggling with his other shoe. When he was gone, Rimmer sank shakily into the spot where Lister had just been sitting, and lay back against the flimsy pillow. He could, he reasoned, just run away. He could go and hide out in a bar somewhere until the week was over, and go back to Red Dwarf as if nothing had ever happened. That option seemed preferable to the other.

Sighing, Rimmer mentally crumpled the idea into a ball and sent it soaring into the nearest bin. He had already paid his share of the room, and even if he were to go to a bar, there was a limit to the amount of drinks he could buy with only a hundred dollarpounds left. He cursed the taxi for charging such alarmingly extortionate rates, and closed his eyes.

XXX

Lister was annoyed.

This was apparent from the way he was slamming things around in the bathroom – a shampoo bottle, his clothes, a rather large insect that he found on the shower floor. Why did everything involving Rimmer have to be so damned awkward all the time? Anyone else he knew would have just accepted the bed, and moved on. But not Rimmer. No way. Rimmer just had to complain, and moan, and throw casual insults around with no consideration for anyone else.

Normally, this wouldn't have bothered Lister. If they were back on the ship, he would have just shrugged it off, probably gone for a drink, but out here, he was, however much he hated to admit it, in Rimmer's territory, this being his home planet and all, and stuck in close proximation to his bunkmate for the foreseeable future.

He tried to put it down to the stress of seeing his parents again, but Lister didn't quite manage to convince himself. After all, Rimmer was like this even when they were on Red Dwarf, he just didn't notice it as much because there was always somewhere to go if he pissed him off too much.

It wasn't as if Lister hadn't considered leaving Rimmer. After all, there was nothing keeping him here – technically, he could just walk away. But there was a horrible guilty feeling nestled in the pit of his stomach every time he thought about it, although it was nothing the goit wouldn't have deserved.

Toweling himself off, Lister stepped out of the shower. He'd just have to grin and bear it. After all, he was the one who had signed up for this. It had been his idea. He'd just have to put up with it.

Lister changed back into the suit he had picked out especially for the occasion. He really didn't understand Rimmer's aversion to his choice of clothing – he had been the one to request he change – but he didn't want to spark another argument by bringing it up, so once he had dressed, he silently made his way back to the bedroom, where Rimmer was lying on the bed, his eyes closed. Lister coughed to make his presence known, and the other man's eyes flew open as he maneuvered himself into a sitting position.

"You gettin' changed, man?" he wondered, and Rimmer nodded slowly, dragging himself painstakingly off the bed, "What time are we supposed to head back to your parents' place?"

Rimmer shrugged, "Preferably never," was all he would say on the matter.

XXX

It was an hour later that they headed back, despite Rimmer's protests. Lister had tried to lift his spirits by suggesting they go to a pub straight after the meal, repeating 'it won't be so bad' so many times Rimmer worried that the words would end up emblazoned on his brain.

It was 'so bad', Rimmer decided as soon as they reached the driveway to find his brothers' cars parked in front of the house. Flashy sports vehicles, he noted sourly, even though he wasn't sure when they found the time to use them, being in the Space Corps and all. The damn things were probably in storage most of the time, anyway.

His father let them inside, and after a swift introduction between himself and Lister, they were led through to the dining room, where the rest of Rimmer's family were already positioned around the dinner table, drinking wine and exchanging pleasantries. Lister sat down next to Rimmer, who was practically twitching with awkwardness, and fiddled with his wine glass before Mrs. Rimmer filled it up.

She was drunk already, Rimmer observed as she placed a hand on Lister's arm, smiling sweetly, all the politeness and bitterness from before vanishing completely as she complimented his clothes, leaning a little too close to Lister's face for Rimmer's comfort.

"Could I possibly trouble you for a drink, mother?" Rimmer snapped, and she drew her attention slowly from Lister to glare at her youngest son. Sighing, she straightened up, and poured him an inch of wine, ignoring Rimmer's raised eyebrows at the meager amount offered and sashaying to the other end of the table.

"Lister!" Rimmer hissed when she had gone, and the other man glanced towards him, "What was rule number nine?"

"Er…" Lister's face scrunched up in mock concentration as he tried to remember a single one of Rimmer's stupid rules, "Don't bring a flamingo to the dinner table?"

Rimmer sighed, "No hitting on my mother, Lister."

"Hittin' on her? I wasn't doin' anything!"

"You were- You were- flirting!" Rimmer squeaked, unable to come up with a better word to describe the abomination Lister was performing.

"I was just sitting here!" Lister protested, defiant. Rimmer gritted his teeth as Lister said, "If anythin', man, she was the one flirtin' with me."

XXX

Just as Rimmer was thinking that the evening couldn't possibly get any worse, it suddenly did. Just as Frank finished explaining how he was planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him next month, after he returned from training for a possible (but probable) promotion, and his parents were looking on with adoring affection, his father's attention somehow swiveled to Lister.

"So, you're Arnold's… friend," he stated. Lister nodded slowly, fiddling with his napkin. Rimmer was just glad he didn't deny it, or greet the comment with a smart-arsed remark.

"I'm surprised he has any, to be honest," Rimmer's father muttered under his breath, as if the whole room couldn't hear anyway. Rimmer's face turned beet red.

"I suppose you're a technician-" The word was spat with such distaste a lump formed in Rimmer's throat, "-too?"

"Er, yes, sir," Lister replied, wondering what else he could say to rid the conversation of this unbearable tension. Dammit, he was supposed to be good with people! People instantly warmed to Lister, it was one of his many charms. Rimmer's father, however, couldn't have looked more disgusted if he had tried.

"No promotion prospects, either, I suppose?"

"Erm-" Lister began, unsure of what to say. He'd never really thought about it, to be honest. He wasn't a book person, so revising for the astronavigation exam was out of the question. His only reason for joining the Space Corps was so that he could get back to Earth, anyway.

"He's sitting the next astronavigation exam!" Rimmer blurted, surprising himself and the others at the table, "Next month."

"I see," Rimmer's father appeared to mull it over, then cocked an eyebrow, "Then I suppose you can tell me the value of lightspeed in miles per second."

Rimmer's heart damn near stopped at the abruptness of the query. Nights of his father's quizzing had left him incredibly wary of the subject of science when brought up around the dinner table, and he instinctively reached out to bring his plate closer to him, remembering countless occasions on which it had been snatched away from him after he failed to calculate some ridiculously complicated mathematical equation in under a minute.

He was about to tell his parents that he had lied, that Lister wasn't actually sitting the astronav exam, because there was no way Lister could ever know the answer to his father's question, when Lister opened his mouth to reply.

"I'd say around one hundred and eighty six thousand, two hundred and eighty two," he said, rather smugly. Rimmer's jaw dropped, and, looking around, he found he mirrored everyone else around the table.

"Not around. Exactly," his father replied, a smile of approval twitching at his lip.

Rimmer, looking at his father's proud expression (one that had never, ever been directed at him) and Lister's smug one, decided that he had never hated anyone as much as he hated Lister right then.


	4. Chapter Four

The meal lasted over three hours. After just one hour, Rimmer wondered how it could possibly last any longer. Everyone seemed to have a never-ending supply of food on their plates – even Rimmer's own meal didn't seem to be decreasing any, even when the polite dinner-time conversation had ceased and everyone turned to their plates. By the time the food – cooked by his mother, which was clear from the fact that the sauce had an incredibly generous amount of red wine in it – had finally been cleared away, dessert was served, and time seemed to be stretching on into an eternity of uncomfortableness.

Rimmer was the first to make his excuses and leave, dragging Lister with him by his jacket sleeve despite his protests. Lister had certainly been having a better night than he had – since he had seemed to impress his father the first time, he had made it his goal to gain his approval, and, in doing so, pissed Rimmer off on an immeasurable scale. Every time Lister answered one of the questions put to him, he'd give Rimmer a snide look from the corner of his eye, and at one point he actually winked. Winked! As if he didn't see the annoyance already painted on his face!

"Well, mother, it's been a wonderful evening-" he lied through gritted teeth, "-but we really must be going. It's a long walk to our hotel." The last comment was muttered under his breath, but his mother didn't seem to care that she'd as good as thrown her youngest son out of the house – she'd already turned to wind her arms around Lister's neck and was currently attempting to tow him towards the stairs.

"Arnie!" Oh, God, what now? What else could possibly go wrong tonight? Rimmer thought desperately as he turned to face Frank. His brother beamed down at him as if he were actually happy to see him. It was a trick Rimmer had actually fallen for once – surely a celebratory hug the year after he joined the Space Corps wasn't totally uncalled for? – and he didn't intend to do it again.

Still, it seemed Rimmer didn't have much of a choice in the matter – his brother drew him into a bone-crushing embrace, damn near lifting him off the floor and completely ignoring the fact that they had company – if Lister qualified as company in his family's book.

"S'good to see you finally brought a boyfriend home!" Frank jeered, planting Rimmer firmly back on the ground. He glared up at his brother and clenched his hands into fists – he wasn't going to retaliate. Denial did nothing but give them more ammunition, and the sooner he could leave the house, the better. It wasn't as if Rimmer hadn't endured the gay jokes every time he came home, every time he failed to bring a girl back – even the one he'd offered to pay had refused. Well, technically, she hadn't refused… If throwing her drink in his face didn't count as an outright refusal.

"Shut up, Frank," Rimmer finally muttered, and once again tried to push his way past his mother, who was now caressing Lister's cheek lovingly, to the hallway, and the front door.

"Nah, there's no way Rimmer could be gay," Lister slurred, grinning foolishly, completely neglecting rule four-oh-three, "He's had loads of girlfriends, right, Rimmer? 'Course, there was Yvonne McGruder, and then… er, nope, can't think of any more!"

Their collective laughter seemed to echo around the whole house, and Rimmer decided not to stand for it anymore. After all, hadn't he joined the Space Corps so that he would finally be free of this place? Admittedly, part of his reasoning was his father's rejection of any other future career paths, but the hugeness of space called to Rimmer. No more taunting from his family, no more pressure from his father if he just ripped his letters up, no more sleeping with boxing gloves on… He would finally be free of them.

He had to say, he didn't think they'd invite him back. But they did, and here he was, red faced and putting up with the same old smeg he put up with every time he came back to this house, these parents.

"I'm going now! I'll see you all the next time someone else can't make it!" Rimmer called from the hallway, still fuming. He waited for Lister to join him before dragging the front door open and stealing out onto the gravel pathway, sighing when his mother clung to Lister a little tighter.

"You will come back for lunch tomorrow, won't you, Dave? I'll put on a nice spread – crack open a bottle of champagne – see where it goes…"

"Er, well, I don't wanna leave Arn by himself all day, Mrs. Rimmer-"

"He can come too," his mother allowed grudgingly, "He can always sit in the back room."

Rimmer rolled his eyes, trying not to see as his mother's – his mother's! – tongue darted out to lick Lister's – Lister's! – cheek. He didn't want to return to the house under any circumstances, but it didn't look as if Lister was going to refuse now, and how could he leave him alone with his mother?! Rimmer sighed, wishing the planet leave would just be called to an abrupt halt so he could go back to working on Z shift.

"Come by at twelve for lunch, Arnold," his mother called when he marched Lister down the garden path. He pretended not to hear her 'if you must'.

XXX

They ended up in a bar in the grottier district of town. Rimmer wasn't entirely sure how he'd ended up there – he only knew it had taken a decent amount of persuasion and wheedling on Lister's part, and that after arguing on a street corner about the amount of alcohol Lister had already consumed for ten minutes and being honked at by no less than five passing cars, he was exhausted. So he'd allowed Lister to practically drag him inside, and now they were perched on bar stools with a pint of something that was hopefully just lager, but from the way the bartender was leering at them, may have been laced with a little more than just beer.

After five minutes of silence, Lister prodded Rimmer in the arm and asked, "What's up with you, Rimmer?"

"What's up with me?" Rimmer cried, incredulous. Lister frowned at him.

"Well, yeah, that's what I asked."

"Lister, are you not aware of what you've been doing?! All night, sucking up to my parents just to wind me up! Flirting with my mother! Answering my father's questions – how the hell did you know the answers to them, Lister? Even I didn't know what half of what he was saying meant – and I read, Lister! When was the last time you picked up a book, eh?"

"I wasn't going to turn up at your parents' house after all that you'd told me without readin' up on astronavigation, Rimmer, was I? Might've gotten my food taken off me."

The last comment sounded slightly sympathetic, as if Lister was even capable of feeling such a thing as empathy, and it made Rimmer want to punch something. The amount of times in his childhood when he'd gone to bed without dinner couldn't be counted on two hands, and remembering all those nights holed up in his room wishing he'd managed to meet his father's expectations couldn't be fathomed into a single sentence, but Lister had managed it, and made it sound so trivial, so easy.

"Rimmer?" Lister prodded him again, took a swig from his glass before continuing, "Look, I'm sorry, okay? It must've been… hard. Sorry," he repeated, looking down at his shoes. Rimmer, assuming as he always assumed, that the apology wasn't sincere, carried on.

"And the snide comments, Lister – don't you think my relationship with my brothers isn't awful enough, without you butting in with comments that make them think even less of me? Frank's already convinced that I'm gay – he doesn't need to know about my lack of sexual encounters, thank you very much!"

"Rimmer, I said I'm sorry, okay? What more d'you want from me?"

"You could at least pretend you mean it, Lister!"

"I do, man!" Lister insisted, his frown deepening, "I mean it. I'm sorry. Won't happen again. From now on I'll just go back to bein' the village idiot, okay?"

It struck Rimmer, then, that maybe Lister was only looking for acceptance the same way he was – after all, as he had previously pointed out, he had never had a real family. Maybe impressing Rimmer's father had just been his way of gaining that acceptance, the way Rimmer's attempts at promotion in the Space Corps were.

"As if you ever were," Rimmer muttered in reply, surprising himself. That had sounded suspiciously like a compliment – and when did he ever compliment Lister?

"It's just-" Rimmer began, well aware that once he began to talk he may never stop, "-everyone likes you. Even though you're a complete smeghead most of the time and you break all the rules in the book and you're completely disgusting – people like you. It's never been like that for me. I try so hard to get people to like me, and they all end up despising me anyway."

"I don't despise ya," Lister said honestly, reaching out to touch Rimmer's arm, "In fact, I even like you, sometimes. When you're like this – when you're not tryin' so hard to make everyone believe you're a total smeghead. 'Cause you're not, really, Arn."

Rimmer was alarmed to find that Lister's use of the nickname seemed to have come naturally, and wasn't loaded with sarcasm. Hesitantly, for the first time in what seemed like ages, he smiled.

XXX

When they returned to the hotel that night, Rimmer tried to get comfortable on the floor. He'd taken the pillow from the bed and curled into a tight ball, trying to make up for the lack of a duvet by using Lister's jacket as a blanket.

When Lister came out of the bathroom to find him lying on the floor like that, he sighed, "When are you gonna swallow your pride an' get into bed with me?"

"If you keep saying it like that, never," Rimmer replied tightly, tucking his knees closer to his chest.

"Come on, Rimmer, it can't be comfortable down there. It won't be awkward, I promise."

"I'm fine where I am."

"No, you're not," Lister sighed again, "Look, we can just face away from each other. It'll be fine. I'll try not to snore as much, okay?"

Begrudgingly, Rimmer looked up at the inviting double bed, and gradually drew himself to his feet, "Fine – but don't think this is a permanent solution, Lister. I'll borrow some money from my mother or something, and get another room."

"You always have to make the worst of everythin', don't you, Rimmer?" Lister said quietly once the other man had slid under the covers, "Anyone else would just put up with it. It's only a few more nights. S'not forever, is it?"

"Mmm," Rimmer agreed half-heartedly, closing his eyes, trying to ignore Lister's sudden closeness. It wasn't easy – he still smelled faintly of curry, even though his last one had been back on Red Dwarf, and the slightly stronger smell of beer wafted over to him occasionally when Lister shifted in an attempt to get comfortable on the lumpy mattress.

"Tomorrow'll be better, Arn," Lister mumbled, close to sleep, "Promise."

"Don't laugh at me again," Rimmer demanded groggily, his own voice filled with the promise of slumber, "Not even if my brother says the most hilarious thing – don't laugh," Rimmer said sternly upon hearing Lister's muffled chuckle.

"Sorry," he apologized, "You're so touchy," Lister said, "It's sweet."

"Sweet?!" Rimmer's attempt at outrage was trampled on by his exhaustion, "It's not sweet." This was barely a mumble, and he couldn't even bring himself to wince as he felt Lister's hand on his leg. Hadn't the man heard of personal space?

"Night, Rimmer."

Rimmer just managed to say 'night, Listy' before sleep overcame him.


	5. Chapter Five

_If there was one thing Arnold Rimmer dreaded most, it was the summer holidays. Which, thinking about it, wasn't something children usually dreaded. Judging from the excited squeals and shouts surrounding him as the residents of Io House streamed out of the school gates and onto the packed driveway where parents milled around to pick them up, everyone else was already having a decidedly better time than he was._

_He'd been preparing for this day for weeks – the day he would finally return to his parents' house and present them with the piece of paper he now held in his hand – with one corner torn off and more creases in it than he could count. He'd thought about throwing the paper away. He'd thought about 'accidentally' losing it. He'd considered crossing out the big fat 'F's littering the page with permanent marker and replacing them with 'A's. But he'd come to the horrible, definite conclusion that he'd be found out, that the school would most likely phone his parents to discuss the awful results he'd received from his end-of-year exams._

_It wasn't as if he hadn't tried. He'd been spending every evening in the school library with his head in his textbooks, and more than once he'd fallen asleep at one of the desks and had been woken the next morning by the librarian telling him he'd better move before he was late to class. But he'd still failed. No matter how hard he tried, how much he revised, how many stupid algebra textbooks he pored over, he still irrevocably failed._

_It wouldn't have been so bad if his parents had been the type to shrug it off, tell him that he could do no better than his best – but the day his parents did that would be the day hell froze over._

_So it was with trembling hands and sweaty palms that he made his way to his parents' car, which was parked right on the edge of the driveway, far away from the eyes of the teachers waiting on the front steps. Far enough away so that no-one would see that they had created this failure of a child._

_The drive home was completely silent. Arnold's brothers were still at home, celebrating the start of the summer outside in the sun. No-one asked how the term had been. No-one asked if he was okay. No-one asked anything, other than 'are you sure you turned the dishwasher off?'._

_By the time they reached their house, Arnold was certain that he was going to have a full-blown panic attack, and was breathing too heavily when they finally spilled out of the car._

_He waited until they were safely inside before he cleared his throat and said, "Mum? Dad? I've got-"_

_"Not now, Arnold – I'm going to fix your brothers a snack," his mother said before bustling out of the room. Dejectedly, Arnold climbed the stairs to his bedroom with his suitcase still in his hand, and set it carefully down on his bed before undoing the clasps and beginning to unpack. Seven weeks of this. Seven weeks of being ignored by his parents and taunted by his brothers. Seven weeks of being stuck inside while they went out to play._

_With a start, Arnold realized he'd left the paper downstairs on the kitchen counter. What if his parents found it and thought he hadn't tried to give it to them? What if they thought he was trying to hide it from them? What if-_

_"Arnold Rimmer, get down here now!" His father's voice drifted up the stairs, and for a second Arnold thought he was going to have a heart attack. Sluggishly, he picked himself up off the bed where he'd collapsed after unpacking, and slowly drifted downstairs._

_"What-" his father spat, "-is this?" He was holding the offending sheet of paper in one fist, anger causing said fist to clench, crumpling the paper even more. Arnold's mind flashed back to results day, when he had queued in the dining hall with the other students to receive his envelope, when he had torn it open with trembling fingers and tugged that very same piece of paper out. 'F's. All 'F's except one – a 'C' in history, which was the only subject he had ever passed._

_"I tried to tell you when we got home-" Arnold began, but his father cut him off._

_"'F's, boy! Is this some sort of joke?! Do you think this is funny, Arnold?! You're a disgrace to this family, and a disgrace to me and your mother!"_

_"I'm sorry-" he tried to say, but his father wasn't listening._

_"We've never had this sort of trouble with your brothers! Do you think I work hard to pay your school fees for you to bring me sheets of paper littered with red home?"_

_"I tried to study, father, honestly-" Again, his protests fell upon deaf ears._

_"You tried. Well, at least you tried," he hissed sarcastically, "Trying doesn't get you anywhere, boy! To survive in this world you have to succeed!"_

_Arnold hung his head in shame, and avoided looking even at his mother, who was standing in the kitchen watching the scene with her arms folded. His father thrust the paper with his results printed on it into Arnold's hand, before screaming, "Go to your room! I don't want to see you for seven weeks, I don't want to hear you, and I do not want to speak to you again!"_

_Arnold trailed back up the stairs with the object of his failure clutched in his hand, and closed his bedroom door behind him._

_Apart from when his mother brought his meals upstairs, he didn't see anyone until it was time to go back to school._

XXX

Rimmer was dreaming. He had been dreaming, approximately, for five hours and thirty five minutes – tossing and turning in the bed, obviously distressed, and occasionally calling out for no-one in particular.

And Lister was sick of it.

He'd been awake for the past hour, lying in the double bed with a rusty spring digging into his ribs, staring up at the ceiling and listening to Rimmer's panic. He'd tried to wake him on several occasions, but he really was a heavy sleeper, and after three tries Lister had given up and hidden in the bathroom until he had stopped dreaming and settled into a comfortable sleep. Only then did Lister return to the bedroom and slip back into the bed to watch the sun rise from behind the filmy curtains.

Rimmer did wake up, eventually, after a lot of prompting from Lister (after shaking his shoulder for several minutes, he'd tried shouting in his ear, kicking him, snatching the duvet away and rolling him to the edge of the bed) at eleven o' clock. That meant Lister had been left by himself, agonizingly awake, for six whole hours.

"Lister! What time is it?" Rimmer asked, alarmed to find the entire left side of his body dangling off the bed.

"Eleven," Lister muttered angrily, "You've been asleep for hours, man. You're usually up at seven, shouting at me. I s'pose you're not taking your mornin' jog today, then?"

"Urgh," Rimmer groaned, "No."

"You were dreamin' pretty loudly back there," Lister commented, rolling off the bed. He had already dressed in a grubby t-shirt and sweatpants, and was lazily picking last night's food from his teeth with an even grubbier fingernail.

"Oh," Rimmer said, "Sorry."

"Nightmare?" Lister wondered, and Rimmer shrugged.

"Just the usual. Y'know – realizing you're naked in the middle of a lecture hall, that sort of thing," Rimmer lied, remembering the dream. If it hadn't actually happened – which it had – he might have been able to shake it off more easily, but being back here on Io, so close to his old house and his old school, brought everything back. His father's face when he had discovered that his youngest son was a complete and utter failure. Seven weeks of solitude without going outside even once. An eternity to reflect upon his actions. His mother's shame every time she dropped a plate of cold food outside his bedroom door. It was no wonder he'd fallen into a restless slumber, especially after the level of alcohol consumption last night. Rimmer felt immediately guilty after seeing the dark circles underneath Lister's eyes, the tired way in which he held himself. He'd expected to be the one to be kept awake, but to his credit, Lister hadn't snored. For a whole two minutes, before the lazy 'hnnnngh' sounds had begun.

"You dreamed you were naked in a lecture hall?" Lister asked teasingly. Humiliation flashed in Rimmer's eyes as he turned away from the other man.

"No! That was just an example!" he fumed, and got up off the bed to go into the bathroom, hiding the blush painted on his cheeks as the end of the dream came flooding back to him. As his childhood bedroom faded around him, and a golden yellow light flooded his subconscious, getting rid of the shadows clawing at the remaining walls of the room, purging the dream of its previous darkness, Rimmer heard someone calling his name. It had taken him until he had woken up to realize it was Lister, that Lister had been the one to rid his past of its hold on him.

XXX

Lister decided, as he heard Rimmer getting into the shower, that he was going to win him over. After all, what Rimmer really looked like he needed right now was a friend – so a friend he was going to be.

He dressed in the most disgusting clothes he could find – long johns that were screwed up in a ball at the very bottom of his duffel bag, stained with unrecognizable substances and with an unhealthy amount of creases in. He was going to be the most revolting, dirty, smeggy friend Rimmer had ever brought back to his parents' house – if he had ever brought any others – and he was going to make Rimmer look like a saint.

Lister smiled to himself. Today was going to be easy.

XXX

Rimmer was startled to find Lister had changed into a set of long johns that were even more putrid than the original t-shirt and sweatpants, and frowned upon entering the room, "Lister? What are you wearing?"

"Aww, Rimmer, don't you like them?" Lister grinned, striking a mocking model's pose, "These're my best ones!"

"We're supposed to be at my parents' house in less than an hour! Are you honestly expecting my mother to want to have sex with you looking like that?"

"As if I want to shag your mum," Lister snorted, "No offense!" he added before Rimmer could protest, "I mean, I'm sure she's great an' all that, just… not my type."

"Well," Rimmer said haughtily, straightening his already immaculate clothes, "It's not as if I want you to 'shag' my mother. You just seemed pretty keen last night!"

"Yeah, well, I was drunk," Lister said, and as Rimmer chimed in with 'that's no excuse!' he mumbled, "I know, Rimmer. I've said I'm sorry. I s'pose I just wanted to wind you up. Sorry," he said again, "But I'm gonna make up for it today! I've got a plan an' everything!"

"Oh, yes?" Rimmer asked, raising an eyebrow, "And just what is your 'plan', Listy? Pray tell!"

"Well, the first step is to make you look good in front of your folks, yeah? So I'm gonna go in there dressed like this and I'm gonna make you look like a brilliant son, yeah?"

"This plan is ridiculous, Lister. It'll never work. Don't you know they already have my brothers to compare me to? I'll never measure up in their eyes, not even if you went in there completely naked, singing drunken lyrics at the top of your voice!"

"Ah, but that's when we initiate plan B!" Lister announced proudly.

"And what might plan B be?" Rimmer sighed. Lister grinned.

"Well, you made all that fuss yesterday when yer brother accused you of bein' gay, right?"

"Yes?" Rimmer said slowly. He was suddenly starting to regret asking what plan B was. He decided he really didn't like this plan.

"Well, if yer parents can't appreciate you and think you can never live up to yer brothers' standards… you should at least ensure you don't have to come back here again, right?"

"Wait…" Rimmer began, "Are you saying I should get my parents to disown me by pretending I'm gay?"

"Hey, you latched on pretty quick, there!" Lister congratulated, leaving Rimmer seething.

"You want my parents to disown me?!"

"Well, I wouldn't say that exactly. But it saves you comin' up with an excuse next year, doesn't it?"

Rimmer thought about it. Honestly thought about it. And came to the conclusion that Lister had gone absolutely stark raving mad. And he told him so.

"I think you've gone absolutely stark raving mad."

"Why?!" Lister asked, "Rimmer, think about it! If they can't accept you – which they should, bein' your parents and everythin', but with their track record I wouldn't place any bets on it – as their son who tries his best and follows all the rules, then they don't deserve you," Lister said, and before Rimmer could counteract this statement with something along the lines of 'they tell me that almost every time we speak – although not in the same sense', Lister continued, "If they won't accept you as the person you are now, Rimmer, then you're never going to be able to accept yourself."

"Have you been taking a psychiatry course behind my back?" Rimmer asked. Lister just rolled his eyes and let the comment slide.

"So, assuming they're total smegheads and therefore prejudiced in every way – you being gay should be the thing to push 'em over the edge, and then you'd never have to put up with their smeg again!" he concluded, smiling hugely, before continuing in a slightly lower voice, "You don't deserve any of this, y'know. Any other family would be over the moon at havin' you for a son."

Rimmer continued to stare at him. Lister watched his confusion and viewed his epiphany, and was still smiling when Rimmer opened his mouth to speak.

"No."

Lister's smile fell from his face.


	6. Chapter Six

Needless to say, the conversation made for a very awkward morning – Rimmer didn't speak to Lister for a whole half an hour, until he decided it was time to catch a taxi and left the room without a word, simply holding the door open for Lister by way of an invitation. Lister, meanwhile, was trying his best to avoid Rimmer's eyes – which, annoyingly, seemed to be on him a majority of the time, searching him for answers that Lister couldn't give.

To tell the truth, not that he would admit it to another living soul, Lister did have a reason behind his moment of madness – because that's what it was, really – complete and utter madness. What had he been thinking? Pouncing on Rimmer like that as soon as he emerged from the bathroom? He should have been less abrupt, much less casual, more oblique. Ridiculous. Rimmer was a paranoid and neurotic person at the best of times – did Lister honestly expect him to jump at the sound of his stupid, stupid plan?

But that was his mistake – he had expected it, he hadn't bothered to remind himself that not everyone could be as laid back as he was. And he certainly hadn't accounted in his plan for the fact that this was Rimmer, of all people.

But the thought had been tugging away at a metaphorical sleeve in Lister's mind ever since he had heard what Rimmer's brother had said yesterday. Just a niggling, tucked away in some dark corner of his brain that he hadn't ventured into since the first day he had met the other man, when Todhunter had shown him to their shared bunkroom and he had seen Rimmer for the first time, just sitting on the lower bunk, reading one of the many books he had on the shelf by the bunks. And then the sensation that, even now, Lister was unable to forget, although God-knows how many times he'd tried to erase it from his memory completely… a sense of attraction and longing so strong that after making a quick introduction he'd had to take a very long and very cold shower.

So of course he was bound to be curious! And he'd even tried to go about it the right way – for one thing, he hadn't just blurted the obvious question, knowing that would almost definitely send Rimmer careening off the rails. He'd attempted to go about it in a calculated – albeit abrupt – way, although judging from the cold glares Rimmer aimed at him when he thought Lister wasn't looking, it hadn't worked out that way.

So it wasn't without a fair amount of trepidation that Lister followed Rimmer out of the hotel room that morning, and he was a jittery wreck by the time they made it out onto the pavement where their taxi was waiting. What if Rimmer realized he had a hidden agenda? It wasn't something Lister would usually mind – he was known for being a hopeless romantic, after all – but this wasn't just any old woman he was planning to ask out on a date. This was Arnold Rimmer, his bunkmate of almost two years now, a man who had to be dealt with with care and delicacy. He couldn't afford to just go charging in there. Knowing Rimmer, he would probably demand Lister pay for his half of the room and leave.

It didn't help things that they were headed back to Rimmer's parents' house. In fact, it made things just awkward enough that neither of them spoke even when they were standing back in the driveway, looking up at the front door, waiting for one of them to be brave enough to ring the doorbell. Eventually, with a heavy sigh of resignation, Rimmer slowly raised his right arm to gingerly press the buzzer, and for a second the only sound was the gentle chimes of the doorbell echoing around the hallway, before Rimmer's mother appeared through the glass and opened the door for them.

It was then that an earth-shattering thought struck him, one that shook him to the very core and sent shock-waves directly to his brain that made him break out into a cold sweat.

He was still wearing the long-johns.

The long-johns that had been stored at the bottom of his bag ever since he had packed. The same ones that hadn't been washed in three months. The ones with more stain than actual fabric.

And he had turned up at Rimmer's house wearing them.

Slowly, Lister gazed down at himself. Past the awful, grubby long-johns to the heavy boots he wore on his feet. He looked a sight. Sure, they were okay for lounging around the bunkroom in, for sleeping in, even, at a push, for walking down to the food dispenser at the bottom of the corridor in. But not, under any circumstances, were they okay to turn up to this middle-class house with two shiny cars parked out in the immaculate driveway in.

This was an obnoxious reminder, as if he needed one, that his earlier plan had been absolutely ridiculous. How had he even thought that even plan A could ever work out? And that was completely disregarding plan B, which made him shudder just thinking about it.

Well, it was too late to turn back now. Lister made a quick –and extremely rash – decision that he would simply have to go through with the plan anyway, whether Rimmer agreed with it or not.

It was beyond his control.

XXX

"Lunch is cancelled," Rimmer's mother announced, wasting no time with a greeting. She barely even looked at the pair standing on the doorstep – just turned and walked back down the hallway, leaving the front door open for them to enter the house. No explanation was offered, so judging by what they had to go on – the fact that lunch was no longer going to be happening in the Rimmer household – neither of them were sure if they were actually invited inside or not.

It was so eerily silent in the house that Rimmer almost jumped out of his skin when Lister quietly clicked the door shut behind them, and only when he regained his composure did he follow his mother through the door to the lounge, where she was bustling around offering mugs of steaming hot tea and coffee to Rimmer's brothers, who were already seated in separate armchairs. Rimmer's father sat stiffly at one end of the couch, and barely glanced up from his newspaper when Rimmer and Lister entered.

"Mother?" Rimmer called to her, poking his head around the kitchen door to where she had disappeared, "Mind filling us in?"

"We're going to pick John up from the university – the lecture he was supposed to be attending finished early, something about one of the professors coming down with something. Frank and Howard agreed to come with us. You and your… friend-" Rimmer picked up on the distaste in her tone, she'd obviously had time to regret the previous night, "-might as well head back to your hotel. Oh, and Arnold, what is he wearing? Why would you bring him to our house dressed in that… thing?! Aren't you aware that we have neighbours, Arnold?" she hissed, shooting a nervous glance out of the kitchen window as if she expected one of them to be hiding in the bushes sporting a pair of binoculars.

"It isn't my fault!" Rimmer winced when his voice came out sounding slightly strangled and incredibly defensive, "I can't control what he wears."

His mother simply shook her head, as if she completely couldn't understand how she had given birth to the man standing in front of her, and muttered something under her breath that Rimmer couldn't quite catch.

"So we came out all this way, wasted money on a taxi, and you just expect us to go back to the hotel? Typical," Rimmer mumbled, surprising himself slightly by arguing back, at the same time turning from her and heading for the door, "It's not like you're short of room," he added, thinking of the flashy cars parked outside. She turned from the sink, still holding a mug in one hand and a dishcloth in the other.

"Fine. Come with us, if you insist. Just make sure your friend doesn't cause any trouble – I don't trust him."

She even pretended not to hear when Rimmer muttered 'it sure looked like you did last night'.

XXX

It didn't take much persuading to convince Lister to come along to the university with them – in fact, it didn't take any at all. Rimmer simply informed him of the plan and sat down at the opposite end of the couch to his father, sitting just as rigidly as he was and focusing his attention somewhere above the fireplace on a patch of wallpaper that was slightly wonky compared to the other border around it, presumably from where his mother and the decorator had gotten a little distracted and hastily finished the job with her legs wrapped around his waist.

Within the next hour, the entire family were packed into the two cars that were parked out front. Rimmer had complained a little when he had ended up shoved next to Lister in the already cramped backseat of Frank's sports vehicle, but had stifled his protests when his brother turned around to snap at him that he was lucky to be invited in the first place.

It wasn't as if Rimmer even wanted to travel nearly fifty miles with his family and Lister to see his oldest and most successful brother, so why had he agreed to come? Maybe it was because he was tired of being swept under the rug like an illegitimate child or some emblem of family shame. It really was a wonder his parents hadn't just locked him in the attic once they realized what a failure he was, Rimmer mused as the car began to ease out of the driveway.

XXX

To say Lister was having a bad day would have been a major understatement. Even without counting the disastrous morning, to be squashed in the backseat of Rimmer's brother's fancy hovercar heading to some pretentious university dressed in his grotty longjohns… didn't bear thinking about.

He knew he and Rimmer weren't even supposed to be invited along. And if he was being honest with himself – really, brutally honest – he would have much preferred to just heed Mrs. Rimmer's wishes and head back to the hotel so he could hide under the bed and pretend the day had never happened. Because despite the bravado and the ridiculous plans and the encouragement he'd given Rimmer that morning… Lister really, really hated Rimmer's parents.

The awkwardness between himself and Rimmer's father whilst Rimmer was in the kitchen speaking to his mother hadn't been present after he'd broken the ice at dinner the previous night, so he'd tried to spark up a conversation regarding quantum mechanics – or the few paragraphs he'd memorized on it, anyway – but he had simply been grunted at and turned away from. Whatever was in the newspaper that morning must have been mighty interesting for Rimmer's father to be able to completely block out the nonsense Lister was babbling.

How long had they been driving for, anyway? Lister tried to surreptitiously lean over to glance at Rimmer's watch, but there was hardly any wriggle room left in the car and he just ended up with Rimmer's elbow embedded further into his ribcage.

He was sick of it. He was sick of watching them treat Rimmer – his friend, at least, if nothing else – like this, like he was an unwanted distant relative who had shown up uninvited, as if they hadn't invited him out here in the first place. He was sick of being frowned at – not only by Rimmer's family, but by Rimmer himself – when he could be propping up a bar with Petersen and having a good time, instead of stuck here with these people making forced conversation about astronavigation theorems that he didn't even understand.

Finally, though – finally – they reached the university campus and Lister was able to ease himself out of the hovercar, which had come to a halt by the main entrance, stretching his aching limbs and watching Rimmer's family make a beeline for the doors. Maybe he could just wait out here until they came out again. He felt around for his pack of cigarettes, before realizing that he'd left them in his jacket which was lying strewn across the bed in the hotel, and sighed, watching Rimmer trail miserably after his parents. He'd have to go in, then – he couldn't just stand out here looking shifty for however long they were going to be gone. Begrudgingly, Lister pushed himself off the wall and went to join them, only to find Rimmer involved in a heated discussion with his father.

"-Well, if you'd actually sent me to the Academy instead of giving up on me straight out of Io House," Rimmer was hissing, quite red in the face, "Maybe I wouldn't be stuck working as a technician on a mining ship! Maybe if you stopped comparing me to John and Frank and Howard all the time and I was under significantly less pressure, I might find the opportunity to make you proud of me!"

Lister, judging by Rimmer's argument, assumed the fight had come about when Rimmer's father had inevitably made a remark like 'why can't you ever get invited to somewhere like this?'. Honestly, Lister was fairly surprised that Rimmer was actually standing up for himself – maybe his words from the morning had done the slightest bit of good, after all – but he was glad of it, nonetheless.

"I highly doubt that, Arnold," Rimmer's father spat back, "I didn't send you to the Academy because even if you, by some miracle, passed the entrance exam, you'd be made a laughing stock! Starting an argument in a place like this – you're an embarrassment!" he hissed, and Lister watched Rimmer's hands curl into fists.

"I haven't started anything-" he began to protest, before Lister casually strode over, rested one hand on Rimmer's shoulder, and roughly turned him around so they were face to face.

No-one was as surprised as Lister himself when he planted a huge, sloppy kiss to Rimmer's lips.


End file.
